My first thought was: “Pam. if you’re going to make it so hard, maybe the world doesn’t need to be changed.”

I mean. judging from the ads I see on TV, we now have 24-48 hour Pampers – for babies and old people, so maybe we can just bundle the world up in some chemically treated polyester swathing and just let it wallow in its own stuff.

The problem with changing the world is, well there are so many problems, it’s hard to pick one. I guess I’d start with the one Pam mentioned. It would take effort, work, probably hard work, and the workers probably wouldn’t live long enough to see the results. Kinda like Moses.

“Wander around with these folks for 40 years and then, well, you’re going to die before the Israel exit…but hey, good job Mo.”

I like to think that God uses nicknames.

A lot of my friends call me Danno. I never wanted that nickname, ‘cuz Danno, on the original Hawaii Five-O, wasn’t the most dynamic character. My best friend John tagged me with that back in 1982. We were working at a consulting firm and we had this really stupid analysis to perform. It involved tabulating a ton of information from a survey at a local community college. The results weren’t going to matter to anyone. John gave me the assignment because I was the new guy. New guys everywhere get crap jobs like that.

I tried explaining why the survey was deeply flawed. He knew that, but countered that we were going to be paid to do it, regardless. Chargeable hours. In the Big-8, chargeable hours were money – literally money. Well, they turned into money.

I protested one last time and John turned to me, tossed a pile of surveys on my desk and said “book ’em Danno!“

That was it. That name stuck like one of those kindergarten nicknames that includes the word ‘poop.’ With my luck, when I get to Heaven, I’ll be assigned the task of keeping the register and St. Peter will say: “Book ‘em Danno!” It depends on who’s doling out the work up there. God would know better than to assign that task to me. That would end up looking like:

Joseph Gadzooks

Joe’s wife

The guy in the yellow hat

The two guys who thought their truck could get across that river – you really need to hear that story.

That woman who was complaining that those two guys got accepted – “well, I never…”

Joe Gadzooks is my friend’s John’s name for every imaginary person ever involved in a business process. It’s a good name, it works for stuff like that. If John were in charge of changing the world, some crummy job would end up being assigned to Joe Gadzooks.

Another problem with changing the world is the fact that it would be so easy to mess it up. Yes, even if you’re in the camp that thinks the world is pretty messed up now, you probably agree that it could get worse. Even stuff that is expected to get worse can get worse than expected.

Take global warming for instance. Some people paint a pretty bleak end result of that problem. Some people say it’s too late to stop, and, yes, some people say it’s a fantasy conspiracy cooked up to ruin the coastal real estate market. That’s why Joe Gadzooks down in Florida won’t let people in government talk about it like it’s really a thing. They can’t even try to solve that problem. They can’t spend money. Do you see how well ‘Joe’ works in situations like that?

Regardless of which camp you’re in with respect to global warming, you have to realize that humans are fully capable of making it worse. As evidence, I offer the Star Trek Next Generation episode: “A Matter of Time.” Some of you are questioning the value of this reference, but consider that the episode was also about time travel. So, if we assume that time travel becomes possible in a few hundred years, then we can assume that the events in this episode might could happen. Or could have happened yesterwhen.

The crew of the Enterprise tries to reverse global cooling on Penthara Four by releasing CO2 into the atmosphere to create a greenhouse effect to hold the sun’s heat. In doing so, they bring the planet to a life and death moment.

Yes, yes, they ultimately save the planet and restore the atmosphere to a pristine condition, but we don’t have a star ship, so that’s probably not an option for us…today.

Hence today’s title. I think we need the equivalent of a remote-control unit, or ‘bipper’ as I refer to it. If we had a bipper, guys could sit back, make a quick change, see how the world looks and either go back, watch for a while, or try a new choice.

“Can’t you just pick one world and leave it there?”

“I want to see if there’s a better one.”

“So, you’re going to just keep flipping from world to world?”

“Yes”

As late as early November, we were still being treated to stunning color.

Hang on, I got this

I wish I had a remote that would show me a different ending to this game

“I had to fall in love with an engineer…”

“I think the game is behind us…”

“Is that red sky at morning, sailor’s warning or…?”

“Can we go back and leave at a different time, or take a different road?”

Since most of the keys were thrown away, let’s hope these couples don’t need a do-over.

In a different reality, this reservoir is full. This reality is called a drought.

“Nice, the entrance is on a corner.”

“In a different reality, I was the tallest building”

Transformation underway.

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Published by Dan Antion

Husband, father, woodworker, cyclist, photographer, geek - oh wait, I’m writing this like I only have 140 characters. I am all those things, and more, and all of these passions present me with opportunities to observe, and think about things that I can’t write about in other places. I have started this blog to catch the stuff that falls out, overflows and just plain doesn’t fit the other containers in my life.
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70 thoughts on “The World Needs a Remote”

Hi Dan. I had a business trip to Hawaii (just one the two I have had!) and managed to take my wife along. We were there for a week doing an exhibition where we had a stand for our banking front office trading system. One night, we had been out for dinner and were walking back to Waikiki beach and were passing a bar, which had a police car outside. A we passed, two cops came out with a guy in handcuffs. Nearly every person in the crowd shouted out – you guessed it “Book him Danno, Murder One!”. The police must get fed up with this.

Impressed, especially with the yes in polyester, and the moon! Nevermind the game! As for climate change – denying that is worse than disbelieving Galileo. Americans, do not go into history as that! (Errrrrrrr. Too late.)

Thanks. I love writing in this style, I’m never quite sure where things are heading. I hope it’s not too late for us to help turn the tide (literally) on global warming, but I fear very little will be done until it’s too late. It’s going to be like stopping a train. You can’t wait until you see the obstacle on the tracks.

Come on Danno, it’s Saturday and you’re back to cerebral thinking and drawing us in. It hurts my head when I haven’t downed my first cup of coffee, and we just finished two years of political campaigning. If we all just conducted ourselves with kindness, tolerance, and respect for our fellow humans and the earth, we could probably take care of a lot of our problems. From this day forward, I will never refer to you as Danno again, I promise. :-)

Thanks Judy. I am at peace with that nickname. Sorry about the direction of this post, but blame those pesky voices in my head. And Pam, yes, I’ll toss her under the bus, she started it with her quip. Something about “changing the world” got stuck in my head.

Love the change the world quote about the couch. How true that is! You bring up a good point. There are so many issues with what mankind creates that it can be overwhelming. You think, how can I help? What could I possibly do in my little corner of the world? Well, you think that occasionally if you are a decent human I guess. If not, you just run carelessly through life screaming….it is all about me, where is my stuff and screw the rest of the world. Then there is the flip side, you worry so much that you miss the beauty that IS already there. YES, it is a complex world. (Do you get bonus bonus points if a comment uses the world yes?) I just hope us humans don’t fill our diapers so much that we get used to wallowing in the bad. Thanks for the post Danno!

Thanks Michelle. I think I should get bonus points for commenters using yes. In very general terms, it seems as if we have become the “my stuff” crowd. I keep hoping that we will wake up to the inherent error in that way of thinking.

Yes! Humans are quite capable of creating e’yes’trains around the world in factories belching smog to create problems. ‘Yes’terday I was called a tree-hugger, now it’s popular to go Green. As I say my goodb’yes’, I wish everyone a wonderful weekend – ‘Yes”!!

Back when I was working, during one of our noon walks, one of my colleagues mentioned that he planned to buy a condo in Florida, another colleague couldn’t believe his ears. When we got back to the office, he emailed a Miami Herald link to the group that warned that Florida was threatened by global warming.

Something didn’t seem right about the article. I know the world is warming. I know the seas are rising – but by how much? So I checked.

I emailed three links back to the group: one link was from NOAA that quantified sea level rise at 3.2 millemeters (about the height of two pennies stacked one atop the other). The other links were from Scientific America that showed the entire east coast is sinking and the third showed that the Miami is subsiding because of ground water depletion due to pumping.

Moments later, a reply appeared in my inbox accusing me of “climate denial”. What shocked me most was that it was from a forensic scientist, a damned good scientist.

Well, scientists being in disagreement over projected results is no surprise. I don’t have the answers, but I’m pretty sure that we should be allowed to talk about it. I think when we start backing into corners and calling each other names, we’ve lost our chance to actually make progress. If we have a problem, let’s try and figure it out, but let’s be willing to deal with the truth (to the degree we can find it). The Earth is a big complex system. Anyway, thanks for the comment. You took the time to investigate. You get bonus points for that :)

As an astrophysics major from college, let me just add this into the global warming discussion: The amount of energy that arrives at the Earth’s surface from the sun is the primary factor for determining the temperature of the Earth. The ice ages were not caused by man made global cooling, and the warming since then was also not man made. Imagine yourself back 25,000 years ago in the middle of the last ice age with a two mile high glacier staring down Manhattan. Now imagine that glacier slowly withdrawing back up to the north pole. Oh My God! Man must be causing global warming! I rest my case.

On a macro scale, you are certainly correct. But the conditions on earth can be affected by what we contribute. Whether it’s what we put in the air, in the water or what we pump out of the ground. Rivers we dam, rivers we divert, and the places we choose to live all affect our environment. I’m old enough to have seen rivers and the Great Lakes become almost unable to sustain life, and then rebound after we changed our practices. It’s a large and complex system and I don’t think we understand it well enough, yet. Thanks for the comment.

LOL… loved the exchange about the couch. Sorry about the nickname. But Danno was my favorite character from that old show. Still… I feel you about that “book ’em” comment… kind of mean. Have a satisfying Saturday, Dan. Hugs.

Thanks Teagan. That was a long time ago, I’ve adjusted and I don’t mind the nickname. I always felt a little bad for Danno. My friend’s other favorite comment was “Danno, get your rifle” which referred to all the times Steve didn’t hesitate to put Danno in danger. My buddy would use that expression to let me know that we had a difficult client to deal with and that I was getting the assignment. Still, I’m guessing that Danno enjoyed being part of Five-O as much as I enjoyed the crazy engagements we had.

Thanks Joanne. Sometimes, I look back at these SoCS posts and wonder how I got to the end. I was struggling this time, as indicated by the higher-than-normal word count. I was trying to get to the part about the remote. Oh well.

I’m glad you liked that photo, That bridge is in Schenley Park in Pittsburgh, PA. One side leads to the campus of Carnegie Mellon University and one to the University of Pittsburgh. As soon as we saw that lock, my daughter and I both guessed it was a CMU student who wove it into the fence.

Yes to bonus points! Yes to a remote that will change the outcome of a football game or send us back to summer! Where can I buy one?

Natasha and I were watching an Enterprise episode last night that involved the temporal war and time travel. So I’m giving myself 100 bonus points for being in sync with you post.

I have had a few nicknames over the years. In school, I was Twiggy or The Jolly Green Giant (I couldn’t understand why being 5’9″ was such a big deal.) A friend’s child used to call me Murray, so the ex used that for a while. Then there was “Marv,” which came from a co-worker. And, finally, I have a few current monikers, including Princess, BikerChick and MJ, the latter coming from my friends at WordPress. I only really hated the nicknames from school, but all the rest were cool. I would think of many worse things to be called…yes?

Nicely done MJ! You get bonus points for starting and ending your comment with ‘yes’ – I used ‘MJ’ because the other yes-yes commenter is GP. You should get bonus points for being in sync, although it could be that I am in sync with your train of thought. Or, as Spock said in “The City on the Edge of Forever,” “there’s a theory that time moves like a river…” or something like that. Maybe we were both brought back to Star Trek for some reason. I had worse nicknames, mostly related to the fact that I was 6’2″ tall and weighed 125 pounds in high school.

And trust me, if I find that NFL remote, I’ll take care of Green Bay and Pittsburgh. They deserve better outcomes than they’ve been getting.

Woohoo! Bonus points! You are a far bigger Star Trek geek than I that you are able to remember episodes and quotes. I’m usually like, “Do you remember the episode when whatshisname did the thing with the thing and…” I must study further! 😉

I loved the original (I was going to say old, but that sounds like it dates me as well) “Hawaii Five-O.” I’ve watched the new one a few times, mostly because it comes before one of my favorite shows, “Blue Bloods.” I, like Judy, am more than a bit worn our from the animus of the pre-, actual, and now post- election. Not that I think we shouldn’t engage in dialogue; I think it’s imperative, but that discussion so often isn’t possible due to lack of civility at best and downright hatred at worst.

I always enjoy your SOCS and the comments, have often gotten sidetracked while writing (or thinking) myself, and will never call you Danno. I do find it fun that the current Danno is the son of the original Danno, though.

Wow – I didn’t know that the current Danno is the son of the original. I have only seem short bits of the current series. I do like blue Bloods. Getting sidetracked while writing is par for the course with me and SoCS. I hope we can continue, or perhaps get to the point where we can engage in meaningful dialog over time, but I understand if people need a rest.

Yesterday I was thinking of pre-plying to your SOCS. Then I figured it might throw your game trying to write that SOCS post. So I fast forwarded to now and wrote it. Yes it seemed like the write choice. The remote took me back to Space Balls. You know the the fast forward that part never happened and the whole “When will then be now” discussion. Is it too soon to put in the DVD and start the If we were having a six pack discussion ? ( implied Yes ). So you never did say which way the SOCS was flowing for this particular post. Do they have reverse tidal flows in SOCS ? Yes if there are remotes. I would stream on however SWMBO reminds me we have garden work to do and the rains have stopped for the moment. So before i go one last comment… blog’em Dan.

Thanks Deborah. There are railroad tracks and some industrial area under that bridge. Plus, a lot are combination locks. Thanks for the bonus points. I wasn’t planning on all that bouncing around, but Linda says we can’t edit, so…

I would not be dismayed at being called Danno. He had heart, energy and good looks. I never felt the way you do about his character.
I like the Man in the Yellow Hat in Curious George. So much compassion and hope you will take heart. (I know you aren’t sad, just saying hope your Yeses are always more than your No’s or Nay’s, Dan.
Heading into four eleven hour days, Mon – Wed, so. . .
Happy Thanksgiving to you, the Editor, Faith, niece and brother. :) <3

Thanks Robin. I did like the man in the yellow hat, that’s why I used that. Danny Williams was all those things, but, sometimes I think he got the short end of the stick with Steve. Good luck getting through a short/long week. Happy Thanksgiving.

The end result of 4 days off makes me happy. My grown children are bring the feast and festivities to Mom. My brother and SIL will be gone while artist Randy will be pet and house sitting, so we are eating in their nice dining room! It will be worth it to get so many people in a photo opp with Mom!

Oh YES I so totally loved this post, Dan! You got me right off by the “getting off the couch” speel. My 2 sense is simple …. Focus on your own life, clean up your own life, and treat others as you would want to be treated. Kindness, respect and Love to all inclusive of Mother Nature. Stop YES stop using chemicals as best as you can and learn how to garden and tend our lawns without them (way not easy!). I call this the Domino Effect for each of us YES effects the other. I know of people who either rage about the “other” pointing blame in someone else’s direction, or they stick their heads in the sand refusing to be in the limelight, in others words, YES being different and making a difference! I spoke to someone recently pointing out just because I have certain circumstances in my life does not mean I will NOT not do anything. I pour my Heart out on my blog urging people to stay in Love and Peace no matter what, and I have researched and studied how best to tend and care for my home and gardens and then YES the area of health too for my cats and myself. Hubby doesn’t seem to um hear my advice so he’s not quite included. Anyways, YES great rambling post which I LOVED LOVED LOVED. Thanks, Danno! LOL ;) <3 …. Bonus points contained in this comment for Danno!

I’ll send Puppy Cody over to help you find that remote control – she’s good at locating electronics even when I try to hide them from her. Only thing is, once found, she would eat the remote control and then we’d all still be in the same boat.

Hopefully someone with Brains will figure something out because I think the best outcome will be humans die before they kill everything else… but probably they’ll take the good critters and the whales/dolphins/etc with them. I am a complete downer about climate change, think that it will be too late before Americans wake up. Not so in Europe. And the dino comparison doesn’t work because they were driving cars. I wish I was wrong but I am not.

Pessimistic? Me? Nevah! Oh my, no no no. I’m the idiotic kind of optimist that thinks someone will read this and change something for the better. You know: “hmm, that guy can’t seem to keep a though in his head but maybe he’s right…”

Wow, you went deep and shallow and over and around today, nice stream!
I no nothing about these shows. I do know that for a liberal, I have an odd opinion that we may not be responsible for global warming. Like, it might just be happening. Can howevermany scientists be wrong? Psh, I dunno, they know more than I do. Then I think as a sane person who enjoys her planet, it really doesn’t matter, we should do everything we can to live better and cleaner, regardless of whether we’re to blame or not. It’s just practical and responsible. Some stuff just isn’t good for the inhabitants of the planet, and we need to take that stuff seriously. It doesn’t feel like a hoax, it feels like something we should pay attention to, cause we live here.
This year was warmer than any I can remember here, and I am not a scientist and I have not looked at data. It just feels that way. I pay attention to feelings.
And I could never call you Danno. I just… no.

Ha, glad the nickname doesn’t work for you. I think you hit my feelings pretty straight on. Who cares why it started? Is there something we can do to help? If yes, then we should do that. We should be smart enough to work our way out of this. Thanks for the “all over” comment. I guess that’s the goal.

I had to check the locks on the fence, Danno, since it reminded me of the Pont des Arts in Paris, now crumbling under the weight of locks. Love the reference to the engineer, though. I should send you a short funny thing I clipped in the early 90s about engineers. You might like it.

“Even stuff that is expected to get worse can get worse than expected.”

Indeed.
I tutored some high school kids in early 2010. One of them used to say “worser” instead of worse. So when stuff gets worse than expected, well, it gets worser. Ha!

But things seem to get only worse with time. The general drift of things is in the negative. Chaos build up, resources diminish, and death comes to all. Even the earth itself seems to be gasping for breath.